Free & Fair Election Forum of Afghanistan (FEFA) in cooperation with the Independent Election Commission (IEC), Independent Electoral Complaints Commission (IECC), Ministry of Interior Affairs, Ministry of Women Affairs, Afghan Women Network, Afghan Women Educational Center and ACSEN Network held a conference on 12/29/2014 in Park-Star hotel. The purpose of conference was to evaluate women political participation in 2014 elections. The participants of this conference were more than 160 person from civil society organizations, political parties, women rights organizations, provincial council members and losing candidates, members of parliament, IEC commissioners and staff, representative of Ministry of Women Affair and representative of Ministry of Interior Affairs.

“Free and Fair Election Forum of Afghanistan (FEFA) considers the candidates’ political agreement on the formation of National Unity Government a step forward and welcomes the announcement of final results of presidential election run-off by the Independent Election Commission that puts an ending to the prolonged process. However FEFA believes latest political outbreaks that denied people the right they must possess in the process could be considered a roll back in democracy and in election process in the country.”

Despite security threats and climatic problems the people of Afghanistan went to the polls twice on April 5th and June 14th, 2014 to experience a peaceful transition of power with their votes for the first time in the history of the country. FEFA observed all stages of the 2014 election process across the country and despite having noticed considerable improvements in the electoral system and structure, it has also observed breach of the laws and rules, violations of procedures

Following the agreement of the two presidential candidates, on july 17,2014 the independent Election Commission began the nation wide audit of the votes cased on 14 June 2014 Presidential Runoff Election.

FEFA conducts observation of the process, currently with over 80 observers and has on standby 50 additional observers who would join the process as soon as the IEC reaches to its full capacity of 100 teams of auditing per day.

FEFA welcomes the agreement of the candidates in respecting the democratic process and the ballots cost and agreeing on mechanism that ensures that the final outcome of the process is based on people’s vote. The two presidential candidates have agreed to an audit and recount of all votes casted in second round of 2014 presidential election. As the priority is given to the election technical process, FEFA considers the agreement a step forward in addressing the issue of transparency of the electoral process and would help to restore the confidence in electoral institutions and the electoral process.
Read more: FEFA’s Press Release on Breaking the electoral Deadlock